Babergh council house tenants, including those in Hadleigh and surrounding villages, are likely to pay seven per cent higher rents after cabinet decision yesterday.

The changes would see average weekly rents increasing by more than £6 for social rents and £9 for affordable rents.

Sheltered housing tenants would also see increases to service charges of seven per cent, and further rises for heating and water.

Babergh's full council will need to agree to the uplifts in February before they are implemented for the financial year starting in April.

These changes come after Babergh announced that just under 470 inspections and safety reports in council homes had been missed, leaving tenants in potentially unsafe conditions.

The council announced last Monday that the regulator of social housing (RSH) issued a regulatory notice, which are given when actual or potential serious harm has been caused to tenants due to a breach of a consumer standard.

Cllr Busby, Babergh cabinet member for finance, assets and investments, criticised the government's decision to change rules allowing maximum affordable home rents to be one per cent higher than the consumer price index (CPI).

The scheme was expected to run for five years from 2020. However, a high CPI of 10.1 per cent has led the government to instead cap rent increases to seven per cent.

Cllr Busby said: "Any increase to rents will be burdensome, especially now. But we have no choice, unfortunately.

"How on earth can we plan a multi-million-pound operation when the government keeps changing the rules?"

In Babergh, the average weekly rent uplifts would be £6.68 for social rent and £9.41 for affordable rent.

The monthly increase to sheltered housing service charges would be £12.19 and sheltered housing utility charges would be £7.42 a month.

Babergh would increase garage rents by 10.1 per cent under the proposals.

Babergh is estimating a HRA deficits of £244,000 for the end of the next financial year, including the rent uplifts.

Final decisions on the changes will be made by full council in Babergh on February 21.